The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com

And that’s really been the nugget at the core of any defense of Kozinski. He was “only” joking, or that he should get a pass or a mere slap on the wrist because his behavior didn’t cross the line into the physical. But in the new WaPo article more women are coming forward with allegations that seem to cross that line and are deeply unsettling.

Take the story of Christine O.C. Miller, who is now a retired U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge. She says that in 1986 she attended a professional event with Kozinski and shared a car ride home at the end of the evening. During that ride Miller alleges Kozinski asked her to stop at a hotel and have sex. When she rejected his advance, she alleges things turned physical:

“I told him, no, I wasn’t interested and didn’t want to be involved in anything like that,” she said. Kozinski, she said, persisted.

“He said if you won’t sleep with me, I want to touch you, and then he reached over, and — this was the most antiseptic — he grabbed each of my breasts and squeezed them,” Miller said. She said she stared straight ahead, and he soon dropped her off at her home.

So now what? The Second Circuit is investigating. He’s hired Susan Estrich at Quinn Emanuel. Will he step down before the Second Circuit concludes its investigation or will he dig in?

8 comments:

Brilliant Judge...always had a prurient bent. I did a post on when this would hit Miami Judges. Lots out there. So far nothing...

I also note that in this day and age, having affairs with women who worked for them would have disqualified Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton. It also would have disqualified Eisenhower from serving as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in WWII.

unfortunately, Rumpole is dead on. Read your history carefully my friends. If we could do a historical mulligan, RR's career in Hollywood would have been fair game in 1980. He was an old school skirt chaser. I doubt he would have survived today's ethos.

In April 2017 Kozinski appeared on 60 Minutes and criticized the federal courts, covered by DM on this blog. Any connection between Kozinski’s 60 Minutes appearance, and the current allegations of sexual misconduct leading to his retirement?

See, How many innocent people are in federal prison? "Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski told 60 Minutes that about 1% or over 20,000 innocent people are in federal prison..."

Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner criticized the federal courts, and then he retired, likely pressured to leave by his colleagues. See Above the Law, The Backstory Behind Judge Richard Posner’s Retirement,

Posner responded to DL’s email, "Nice to hear from you, David. And I’m not taking senior status; my departure is total. It has to do with fact that I don’t think the court is treating the pro se appellants fairly, and none of the other judges agrees with me (or rather, they don’t like the pro se’s and don’t want to do anything with them, with occasional exceptions only)."

I may be in the minority about Petersen. The man has devoted nearly his entire career to public service. He didn't deserve to hung out to dry by the White House and Kennedy. If Kennedy thought him to be unqualified, he could have gone to Petersen and the WH. Don't embarrass him in public.

Allegations of sexual misconduct against Kozinski go back decades, so why raise them now? Are the judicial councils and the judicial conference so weak on discipline that they sit on allegations of sexual misconduct for decades, until the NYT exposed Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo got rolling? You know Kozinski is not the only federal judge who has engaged in sexual misconduct. But Kozinski is the first to go. Clearly the judicial conference was not happy with his appearance on 60 minutes. Just sayin...

The Southern District of Florida blog was started in 2005 by David Oscar Markus, who is a criminal trial and appellate lawyer in Miami, Florida. He frequently practices in federal courts around the country, including his hometown, the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former law clerk to then-Chief Judge of the District, Edward B. Davis.